Tessera
Folgen

Dr. Verena Krebs

@krebsverena.bsky.social

Medieval Historian. North-East Africa & Ethiopia. German. Professor. GIF lover, Sci-fi fan. Getting better at remembering this app exists. More info: VerenaKrebs.com.

510 Posts3863 Follower635 Folgt
Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · 3mo ago

Well, at least the smiley face on the thermometer — right next to my monitor on my desk — is happy (it's 9:27am). 12-foot ceilings helped keep our flat kept at bearable temperatures for a while, but ... no more.

Close-up of a small, square thermometer sitting on a mango-wood desk; temperature is 30.8°C / 87.6°F with humidity 58%, there's a smiley face icon featuring a very wide smile. Blurry view of a stucco ceiling in an early 20th-century German Altbau flaut in the background.
Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · 3mo ago

99.999% done on an article I've been beating myself up over for the past year. OH THE SWEET RELIEF. Seems fitting that I'm sat here, on a Monday evening at 9:30, Word-searching 'decomposed' to fix a typo in a footnote about a much-admired relic of a dead baby in a crystal box. ❤️ Academia.

Screengrab of a Word document, the search term "decompose" in the Find box. The article is about "Moving Marvels from Venice to Ethiopia, ca. 1400 CE". The main text file reads: "The Coptic History of the Patriarchs, meanwhile, specifies that the ‘Frankish’ king, deeply moved by Dawit’s show of faith, first and foremost sent out a fragment of the Wood of the Cross set in a reliquary ‘cross of gold ornamented with precious stones’, as well as ‘magnificent’ garments and other religious treasures, among them a reliquary holding one of ‘the children whom Herod the hypocrite had slain’. The relics, the History specifies, travelled ahead of the other gifts via Alexandria and Cairo, where they were much admired and blessed by Coptic patriarch Matthew. The Gǝʿǝz Homily matches the History’s account and expands it considerably, providing by far the most detailed account of things subsequently brought from the Adriatic to the Horn of Africa. First among these gifts is the relic of the True Cross — unsurprising, seeing that the relic is narrated as having occasioned the whole venture, and the composition of the text itself. .... The remaining forty folios of the Homily detail wagonloads of precious objects that had accompanied the Cross — gifts the History had only hinted at, and things that could well have been bought with the stately sum set aside by the Great Council of Venice. The footnote with "decomposed" reads: "Notably, the Holy Infant relic — with the child’s body preserved in ‘good condition […] from the days of our Master Christ up till now’, seeing that not even ‘one of its fingers was decomposed’ — drew great awe in Egypt; compare (Evetts 1970, 249–50)."
Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · 7mo ago

If you're the praying type, say a prayer for Otto, son of Elisabeth, the very best of fathers, a wonderful man. He's been *living* with Glioblastoma, among the most aggressive cancers known to mankind, since 2019 — a miraculous statistical outlier, winning each & every fight. Until yesterday.

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · last yr.

Well, in retrospect, August was a 🤬 flaming dumpster fire of a month. Spent most of it in various hospitals with my dad, fighter extraordinaire, now in his 6th year of obliterating Glioblastoma statistics. Things are looking up, but ... phew. Man plans, God laughs, academic sabbatical edition.

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Chat, I think... I did a thing? Or at least set the first domino in motion? futurism.com/artificial-i...

Grammarly Is Pulling Down Its Explosively Controversial Feature That Impersonates Writers Without Their Permission

Shishir Mehrotra, CEO of Grammarly's owner Superhuman, has announced that the company is "disabling" a feature that impersonated journalists.

futurism.com

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Using Grammarly for the first time in forever ... WHAT? As a non-native speaker writing primarily in English, I used to use it to check prepositions, point out too long/convoluted sentences etc. It now offers to summon colleagues both living and dead to "expert review" the piece??? What?

Text on an academic article about "Moving Things: Moving Cartloads of Treasures from Venice to Ethiopia, ca. 1400" pasted into Grammarly in a Browser. It offers to invoke the digital ghosts of David Abulafia, Barry Flood and Chris Wickham to give me "expert feedback".
Erica Buchberger@ericabuchberger.bsky.social · 7mo ago

@krebsverena.bsky.social showed they're doing this to academics. They're also doing it to journalists. They were shamed into letting people opt out with an email (see the article for details).

Julia Angwin@juliaangwin.com · 7mo ago

Wait, what?! Grammarly made an AI persona of me and all these other journalists?!!!!! Thank you @caseynewton.bsky.social for shaming them into at least offering a paltry optout— although obviously that is not enough. www.platformer.news/grammarly-ex...

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · 7mo ago

Using Grammarly for the first time in forever ... WHAT? As a non-native speaker writing primarily in English, I used to use it to check prepositions, point out too long/convoluted sentences etc. It now offers to summon colleagues both living and dead to "expert review" the piece??? What?

Text on an academic article about "Moving Things: Moving Cartloads of Treasures from Venice to Ethiopia, ca. 1400" pasted into Grammarly in a Browser. It offers to invoke the digital ghosts of David Abulafia, Barry Flood and Chris Wickham to give me "expert feedback".
Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · 8mo ago

Medieval (Byzantine) art historian hive mind: An Ethiopian Miracle of Mary describes the making of gold paint for an illuminated manuscript and says a Byzantine man appearing in a dream, crushing a "white, gleaming stone" into the gold paint to make it shine. Any ideas what that substance is?

The image whose gold-paint making-of is described as "crush a white stone in a mortar, add it to cooking gold solution, and the result no longer looks like dry, dusty earth, but instead like gleaming gold". Image from Geshen Maryam, "Miracles of Mary" Manuscript, ca. 1400, made for Solomonic king Dawit, seen praying towards the Virgin (whose name and figure is ornamented in gold paint).
Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · 10mo ago

Mysteries (or not!) in the margins, baby! Or: why it's important to actually *see* a manuscript text.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Oh wow! This is what happens when you're photographing MSS & don't capture the text in the inner gutter. 1st, here's the photograph (made about 100 yrs ago) of the Codex Salernitanus, f. 82ra. Although that big tear of the page is obvious, the inner gutter hasn't been fully captured in the photo.

Breslau Codex (Wrocław, Stadtbibliothek, MS 1302, s. xii ex./xiii in.), f. 82ra, showing tear in the page but only the very edge of the text in the inner gutter.
Craig Perry@caperry.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Yay! I just noticed that my book is available for preorder. Use the code PUP30 for 30% off. Share with your librarian! Will ship on Jan 20, 2026 just in time for uhhhhh someone's birthday? Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt | Princeton University Press press.princeton.edu/books/hardco...

Slavery and the Jews of Medieval Egypt

A new global history of the slave trade, the lives of enslaved people, and the role of slavery in the formation of Jewish and Arab-Islamic culture in the medieval Middle East

press.princeton.edu

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · 11mo ago

Job in a really great department in a surprisingly awesome city (said the German who'd never been, until she did go).

Christopher Nygren@cnygren.bsky.social · 11mo ago

🚨🚨🚨 Major announcement!!! I am extremely pleased to announce that HAA is searching for a senior, endowed position in premodern art or architecture. The subfield is wide open. Please spread the word and encourage curious scholars to write to me with questions! 🚨🚨🚨 cfopitt.taleo.net/careersectio...

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · last yr.

"Something happened in Northeast Africa in the early thirteenth century. It was swift, violent, destructive, and perpetrated by non-Muslims. It might have been accompanied by an outbreak of disease; it might have had apocalyptic overtones; it might have been several events rolled into one."

Screenshot of the article abstract: The Tatars of the Sūdān: Race, Place, and Power in Ibn Saʿīd’s Geography HannaH Barker Arizona State University Abstract Scholars in the medieval Islamicate world occasionally compared peoples of the far south and the far north, referencing their barbarity to illustrate the effects of extreme climate on human bodies and societies. This article discusses a specific north-south comparison: the portrayal of the Damādim as “the Tatars of the Sūdān,” introduced by Ibn Saʿīd al-Maghribī in his thirteenth-century geography. He used it to connect the Chinggisid devastation of Khwarazm in the thirteenth century with the Damādim’s devastation of the Nūba and the Ḥabasha in Northeast Africa. Analyzing this comparison in a historical and discursive context tells us little about the Tatars, Northeast Africa, or the Damādim. Instead it reveals Ibn Saʿīd’s work as a racemaker. His comparison emerged in a historically specific moment: it was shaped by the imposition of Tatar rule in the Islamicate East and the constructs of the intellectual community in which he participated. The fact that Ibn Saʿīd invented entirely new content for the term “Damādim” and that this came to be adopted by his peers illustrates how racial stereotypes could change. Finally, the comparison reveals the power dynamics of racialization, as Tatars and Turks holding power in the Islamicate world could intervene in Islamicate racial discourse in a way that Black Africans could not.
Al-ʿUṣūr al-Wusṭā: The Journal of Middle East Medievalists@alusuralwusta.bsky.social · last yr.

The article is open access, so you can read, download, & share it here:

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · last yr.

Well, in retrospect, August was a 🤬 flaming dumpster fire of a month. Spent most of it in various hospitals with my dad, fighter extraordinaire, now in his 6th year of obliterating Glioblastoma statistics. Things are looking up, but ... phew. Man plans, God laughs, academic sabbatical edition.

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · last yr.

It's August, which means the semester break is finally upon us in Bochum (sorry, American colleagues!). Starting my 14-month post-appointment sabbatical (🤯!) as befits my rural roots: with long rambling walks through the hilly Hessian countryside, my tried and tested method for starting a new book.

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · last yr.

I just did this—followed the steps below to stopAcademia's AI-fication of my work. Thanks but no thanks. I've gone on enough real podcasts, done real interviews and written my own public facing essays that I really don't need an auto-generated version that likely distorts what I actually wrote.

Monica H Green@monicamedhist.bsky.social · last yr.

Whoa! Thanks for the tip. For other folks wanting to do this, here are screenshots of what I just did. Start by going to you "Account Settings." Then follow the screenshots below. And yes, when given the option "Are you sure you want to proceed?," you better believe I hit that sucker!

disabling AI on Academia.edu: #1 - go to 'account settings' (flagged with red arrow).
Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · last yr.

I tend to think my name's pretty basic — 'Verena' is very much an 80s girls' name from the German-speaking regions of Europe (although we're all named for a 4th-ct Coptic saint from Thebes in Upper Egypt— القديسة فيرينا). And then there's weeks where I'm constantly called ...Veronika, Vera, Verona.

Photo of the Cairo metro mosaic of St. Verena (transliterated here as Verina), "the Egyptian nun who introduced personal hygiene to Europeans", Abbassia, Cairo, Egypt. She's wearing bright red garb and staring judgingly at the onlooker, holding objects useful for personal grooming, hoping you'd get that smelling good is an option.
Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · last yr.

Well, it's finally *really* out: habemus full citation — Krebs, V. (2025). ‘People and Things Have Always Been Mixed Up’: Notes on the So-Called Global Middle Ages. Journal of Medieval History, 51(4), 581–585. doi.org/10.1080/0304... 50 free downloads at: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RAEXD...

‘People and Things Have Always Been Mixed Up’: Notes on the So-Called Global Middle Ages

This essay takes the 1429 execution of a Persian merchant in Mamlūk Cairo, sent by a Christian king in the Horn of Africa to procure relics in Latin Europe, as a point of departure for reflecting o...

tandfonline.com

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · last yr.

Third set of proofs for a piece I really, really, really struggled to write, but now am actually very happy with (even if my affiliation, mysteriously, now language-switches between German and English). Part of the Journal of Medieval History's 50th anniversary issue, to be published sooooon.

Screengrab of a set of article proofs. The title is People and Things Have Always Been Mixed Up’: Notes on the So-Called Global Middle Ages Verena Krebs Historisches Institut, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany ABSTRACT This essay takes the 1429 execution of a Persian merchant in Mamlūk Cairo, sent by a Christian king in the Horn of Africa to procure relics in Latin Europe, as a point of departure for reflecting on the so-called Global Middle Ages. Like countless objects in museum collections that quietly refute the geographies they were long seen to illustrate, his story shows how ‘medieval’ people and things often far exceeded the boundaries imposed on them by modern historians. I argue for viewing the Global Medieval as a methodological approach: a shared language that enables more capacious forms of historical analysis for the period between ca. 500 and 1500. Doing so requires collaborative, interdisciplinary work across materials, languages, and fields – and journals willing to support that work in editorial practice. This Comment is part of a special issue marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Journal of Medieval History.
Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · last yr.

Well, it's finally *really* out: habemus full citation — Krebs, V. (2025). ‘People and Things Have Always Been Mixed Up’: Notes on the So-Called Global Middle Ages. Journal of Medieval History, 51(4), 581–585. doi.org/10.1080/0304... 50 free downloads at: www.tandfonline.com/eprint/RAEXD...

‘People and Things Have Always Been Mixed Up’: Notes on the So-Called Global Middle Ages

This essay takes the 1429 execution of a Persian merchant in Mamlūk Cairo, sent by a Christian king in the Horn of Africa to procure relics in Latin Europe, as a point of departure for reflecting o...

tandfonline.com

Dr. Verena Krebs@krebsverena.bsky.social · last yr.

Third set of proofs for a piece I really, really, really struggled to write, but now am actually very happy with (even if my affiliation, mysteriously, now language-switches between German and English). Part of the Journal of Medieval History's 50th anniversary issue, to be published sooooon.

Screengrab of a set of article proofs. The title is People and Things Have Always Been Mixed Up’: Notes on the So-Called Global Middle Ages Verena Krebs Historisches Institut, Ruhr University Bochum, Bochum, Germany ABSTRACT This essay takes the 1429 execution of a Persian merchant in Mamlūk Cairo, sent by a Christian king in the Horn of Africa to procure relics in Latin Europe, as a point of departure for reflecting on the so-called Global Middle Ages. Like countless objects in museum collections that quietly refute the geographies they were long seen to illustrate, his story shows how ‘medieval’ people and things often far exceeded the boundaries imposed on them by modern historians. I argue for viewing the Global Medieval as a methodological approach: a shared language that enables more capacious forms of historical analysis for the period between ca. 500 and 1500. Doing so requires collaborative, interdisciplinary work across materials, languages, and fields – and journals willing to support that work in editorial practice. This Comment is part of a special issue marking the fiftieth anniversary of the Journal of Medieval History.